1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a fabric especially useful for ballistic protection wherein the fill fibers in the fabric are chosen to be tougher and to have higher elongation to break than the warp fibers in the fabric.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Canadian Pat. No. 1,034,842, issued Jul. 18, 1978 on the application of Weinberger, discloses a fabric useful for ballistics protection which has dissimilar fibers in the warp and weft directions. The apparent reason for the dissimilar fibers in that patent, however, was to achieve dissimilar patterns of corrugation on opposite fabric surfaces. The fibers are desired to be "spongy" in the weft and "relatively hard" in the warp, with no further indication as to the meaning of "spongy" and "relatively hard". It appears that the improvement in the fabric resides in the different corrugations on opposite sides of the fabric.
European patent application 310,199, published Apr. 5, 1989 on the application of Hoogenboom et al., discloses a ballistic fabric wherein the warp and fill yarns are made from different polymers and, moreover, the warp yarn is selected to exhibit a higher elongation to break than the fill yarn.